Giuseppe Bottai

Giuseppe Bottai (3 September 1895-9 January 1959) was the Education Minister of Fascist Italy from 15 November 1936 to 5 February 1943, succeeding Cesare Maria de Vecchi and preceding Carlo Alberto Biggini.

Biography
Giuseppe Bottai was born in Rome, Italy on 3 September 1895, and he served in the Royal Italian Army during World War I before meeting Benito Mussolini in 1919 and becoming a journalist for the National Fascist Party's newspaper. Bottai was made a member of Parliament in 1921, and he took part in the 1922 March on Rome. Bottai served on the Grand Council of Fascism from 1926 to 1943, and he served as Mussolini's Under-Secretary from 1926 to 1929, Minister of Corporations from 1929 to 1932, Governor of Rome from 1935 to 1936, Governor of Addis Ababa in 1936, and Minister of National Education from 1936 to 1943. As Education Minister, he played an important part in drafting Mussolini's anti-Semitic legislation in 1938. He voted to depose Mussolini in the Grand Council meeting of 25 July 1943, and he escaped to North Africa in 1944, joining the French Foreign Legion. He returned to Italy in 1948, having been granted amnesty for his role in fascism due to his wartime service in the French military. He founded his own conservative periodical, and he died in Rome in 1959.